The Supper Club Monster BLT: Bigger Isn’t the Hard Part – Part 1

On paper, the Supper Club Monster BLT seemed pretty straightforward.

My vision was this:

A towering stack of thick-cut bacon piled between two slices of toasted sourdough bread, topped with crisp iceberg lettuce, thick-sliced ripe tomatoes, and your choice of house-made garlic aioli or basil mayonnaise. A true Wisconsin supper club classic, built bigger.

Simple enough, right?

Yesterday, it finally made its way into the G&C test kitchen.

Now, don't get me wrong. I've made hundreds of wonderfully delectable BLTs in my time. It's one of those sandwiches that really doesn't need much explaining. Bacon. Lettuce. Tomato. Mayo. Toast.

But this one couldn't just be a good BLT.

It had to be G&C Sandwich Company good.

And apparently that means having opinions about everything.

Let's Talk Bacon

I started with pre-sliced, thick-cut, applewood-smoked bacon.

Was it necessary to buy it pre-sliced?

No. It saved me a step.

Was applewood-smoked bacon necessary instead of traditionally cured bacon?

Probably not.

But if you've ever tasted the two side-by-side, there is a difference. It's subtle, but it's there. And on a sandwich where bacon isn't simply an ingredient but the ingredient, I think that difference matters.

Applewood it was.

I laid the bacon out on parchment-lined sheet trays and put it into a 375-degree oven.

And this is where I think a lot of BLTs go wrong.

I wasn't trying to make the bacon as crispy as humanly possible.

I wanted enough heat and time to render the fat properly, but I wanted to stop before the bacon crossed over into that extra-crispy stage where taking your first bite sends shards of bacon cascading onto your plate.

Perfectly cooked bacon should have some structure. It should have some chew. But when you bite through the sandwich, the bacon should separate cleanly.

No bacon shrapnel.

And, perhaps more importantly, no brief game of tug-of-war between you and the sandwich.

The thick cut was non-negotiable. These slices started at a generous 1/8-inch-plus thickness.

Perfect.

The Half-Pound Problem

Then I ran into an interesting problem.

I've been developing the G&C sandwiches around the idea of generous portions—often a half-pound of meat.

So why should the Monster BLT be any different?

Well…

Four strips of this bacon weighed a little more than eight ounces before cooking.

Oops.

Obviously, bacon loses a significant amount of weight as the fat renders, so describing this sandwich by its raw bacon weight doesn't make much sense.

Maybe cooked weight is the answer.

But I'm starting to think there's an even better description:

Eight hearty slices of thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon.

People understand what that means.

And eight slices is exactly what went onto each test sandwich.

Monster indeed.

Then My Chief Taste Tester Complicated Things

My original plan called for basil mayonnaise.

Then I made the mistake of discussing the sandwich with a friend who also happens to serve as one of my chief taste testers.

Her opinion?

A BLT isn't a BLT without avocado.

She's wrong.

There. I said it.

Adding sliced avocado was a nonstarter for me. I want this to remain a BLT, not become a BLTA.

But her comment did get me thinking.

What about an avocado aioli?

And just like that, one test sandwich became two.

One with my house-made basil mayo.

One with avocado aioli.

This is why the test kitchen exists.

Mayo Problems

The basil mayo was good.

But good isn't the goal.

I had used fresh basil, and the little pieces of basil created two problems.

First, they were slightly chewy.

Second, every once in a while you'd get a bite containing a larger piece of basil and suddenly the basil completely took over the sandwich.

That's not what I want.

I want the basil flavor distributed throughout the mayo so that it's present in every bite without ever announcing:

HELLO. I AM BASIL.

Back to the drawing board.

The avocado aioli had almost the opposite problem.

The flavor worked.

The consistency didn't.

We knew almost immediately that avocado aioli wasn't giving us the texture or appearance I wanted for this sandwich.

But I haven't given up on the idea.

Next test: avocado mayo.

The Tomato Test Wasn't Even Close

I also had some opinions about tomatoes.

Of course I did.

One sandwich got thick slices of beefsteak tomato.

The other got similarly thick slices of heirloom tomato.

Both were good.

But the heirloom wasn't just better.

It put the beefsteak to shame.

The juiciness. The flavor. The slight variations in sweetness and acidity.

On a sandwich with this few ingredients, every one of them has to earn its place.

The heirloom tomato earned it.

Decision made.

To Shred or Not to Shred

Then there was the lettuce.

My original thought was to shred the iceberg.

Why?

Mostly because it would be different.

Maybe that little visual and textural difference would help make the Monster BLT even more memorable.

That idea didn't even survive long enough to make it onto a sandwich.

I got vetoed.

The argument was that part of the BLT experience is that wonderful, unmistakable crunch you get from biting through a generous sheet of cold iceberg lettuce.

She was right.

I hate it when that happens.

No shredded lettuce.

Give me those big, crisp sheets.

And Then There's the Bread

For me, this was probably the easiest decision.

Freshly toasted sourdough.

Could you make a perfectly respectable BLT on white toast?

Absolutely.

But this is G&C.

I'm not looking for something that's perfectly respectable.

I'm trying to figure out what makes the sandwich perfect.

The slight tang of sourdough against the richness and saltiness of all that bacon just works. Toast it properly and you get enough structure to hold everything together while adding another layer of crunch.

There was never much of a debate.

So, How Was It?

Eight slices of perfectly cooked, thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon.

Thick slices of heirloom tomato.

Big, crisp sheets of iceberg lettuce.

Thick slices of freshly toasted sourdough.

One with basil mayo.

One with avocado aioli.

Both sandwiches were good.

Really good.

But the basil mayo version stood out.

And that's actually a little frustrating, because the basil mayo itself was the part I wasn't happy with.

Which means I think I'm very, very close.

That's also exactly why I test these things.

You can spend hours thinking through every component of a sandwich. You can obsess over the bacon thickness, the cooking temperature, the tomato variety, the lettuce and the bread.

And then something as seemingly insignificant as the size of the pieces of basil in the mayonnaise can change the entire bite.

So we're not done.

The heirloom tomatoes stay.

The iceberg stays.

The sourdough stays.

Eight beautiful slices of thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon definitely stay.

Next test?

Same sandwich.

Better basil mayo.

And this time, avocado mayo instead of avocado aioli.

We're close.

Stay tuned.